From: me@yyzkevin.com   
      
   On Monday, 17 July 2023 at 08:55:10 UTC-4, Christian Holzapfel wrote:   
   > Something similar like your TSR could have been done before.    
   > I was just fiddling with my ChipChat, which is SB compatible and generally a   
   similar ISA-to-MCA conversion, when I noted that DOOM crashes at startup with   
   the known stack overflow.    
   > Then on the Install Disk 1 I found DOSMIXER.EXE and DOSMIXER.DOC, which   
   suggests:    
   > "DOSMIXER -M15 -F10 -W15 -I0 -G    
   > same as previous example, Except also sets up the sound card    
   > for the "special game" setting.    
   >    
   > Some DOS games require the sound card to be initialized to a    
   > special state. If you encounter any issues running a DOS    
   > game run the "DOSMIXER" with the "-G" option. Games like    
   > "DOOM" and "HERETIC" require this setting. Games such as    
   > "Rise of the Triad" do not. For the games that require the    
   > "-G" option, we suggest you put the DOSMIXER statement in    
   > a batch file to run the particular game."    
   >    
   > After running DOSMIXER -G, DOOM starts fine.    
   > OPL3 sound (internal FM synth) is still distorted due to the other thing you   
   found out, but the external wavetable is just fine.    
   > I didn't look into DOSMIXER.EXE through the disassembler goggles, but it   
   might do something similar and was probably forgotten about.    
   >    
   > For Raptor though, it does not clear the startup issues, the SB remains   
   "undetected".   
      
   Certainly interesting.  I am not sure it is a TSR?  It sounds like it may be   
   updating configuration registers on the card.    I would have to look at the   
   ESS1688 datasheets more closely and see if this is related to their extended   
   or compatibility modes.    
     Just scanning it quickly was interesting to see the topic of a fifo and   
   interrupt on half full/empty signal,       a solution I arrived at on an early   
   prototype of my PCMCIA SoundBlaster that has to emulate DMA in a way   
   compatible with games,  given    
   that PCMCIA (mostly) has no DMA signals.   
      
   Put it on my list to check out dosmixer see if it is just setting registers   
   within ESS1688 or staying resident and doing some magic.     
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)